


The Way We See

by LyricalPary



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Blind Ashton, Disability, Fluff, Fluffy fluff-fluff, M/M, That's all this basically is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 03:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1924908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyricalPary/pseuds/LyricalPary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashton doesn't understand the concept of beauty, but Luke gives him an idea of what it means to be truly beautiful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way We See

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xiiis16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiiis16/gifts).



> **Notes:** I'm going to admit that I don't know what this is, but it was fun to write. This short thingy is inspired by a film with a similar title, "The Way He Looks" ("Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho" in Portuguese), which in turn is based off the short film, "I Don't Want to Go Back Alone". Originally, I wanted to write a really long one-shot based off the movie itself, but I really don't have the time to do that, at the moment. However, since I still couldn't get the damn idea out of my head, I wrote this small bit instead! Yeah, I know, I'm so weak. Hope you enjoy it, whoever reads it. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** I don't own either of the films, this is merely a work of fiction, yadda yadda.
> 
>   
>  **I do not give anyone permission to upload this work anywhere else.**   
> 

* * *

 

“Hey, Luke?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you look like?”

It’s silent for a few seconds, but Ashton simply waits.

“Um—what do you mean?” Luke responds at last. He sounds a little confused, almost unsure.

“I mean exactly what I said. What do you look like?” Ashton repeats.

Once again, Luke doesn’t answer immediately, just hums as he thinks of what to say. Getting to know Luke these past two months has taught Ashton the concept of _patience_. For whatever reason, it usually took Luke a moment to reply to questions or give his input on whatever they were currently discussing, but Ashton has come to the conclusion that it’s because Luke is a thinker. As in, he’s the type to consider his words carefully instead of simply blurting them out without a second thought.

It probably also has to do with the fact that Luke is _shy_ , but Ashton thinks that that shyness is slowly slipping away from him, the more that they hang out. At least, he hopes that it is, because he really likes Luke and he considers them to be friends now. Since they’re currently hanging out at his house again, he assumes that Luke likes him, too.

“I look like…” Luke starts to say, a short pause following those words. “I guess I look like… an average human boy?”

Ashton snorts and slowly sits up from his previous position, now leaning his back against the wall next to his bed.

“Thanks. That’s very helpful,” he teases, tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Sorry,” Luke mutters, and although he sounds embarrassed, he laughs a little. “I guess I don’t really understand what you want me to say?”

Ashton nods and supposes that he could’ve been more specific. He lightly drums his fingers on his thighs to the tune of the low music playing throughout the room, and decides to try again.

“Describe yourself to me.”

It’s become sort of a game for Ashton. He would ask someone to describe themselves, and then ask someone else to describe that person. The results were always drastically different, and it was interesting to hear what people looked like in the eyes of another. For instance, he remembers long ago when he had asked his best friend, Michael, to describe what he looked like. The next day he had asked his other best friend, Calum, to describe Michael. The descriptions that he received from each of them were totally different, and he wanted to see if his hypothesis was true.

So, next time he had asked Calum to describe himself, then went to Michael and told him to describe Calum. Just as he had guessed, the descriptions were different. Apparently, people see their physical appearance much differently from how other people see them. That’s what Ashton came to learn. And from his friends’ descriptions, he also came to the realization that Michael and Calum were attracted to each other, maybe even a little bit in love.

He hadn’t been wrong about that, either.

Luke is humming again, but it doesn’t take as long for him to answer this time. “Well, I have two arms, two legs—which people constantly tell me are really long—and ten toes; but, not on each foot. That would be creepy. I also have five fingers on each hand, a nose, and—”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Nevermind,” Ashton says, cutting him off. “No need to be a smartass.”

He hears Luke laughing again and feels a gentle nudge against his bare foot.

“’M not trying to be a smartass,” Luke claims, still chuckling a little. “I just really don’t know what to say… wait, I have an idea!”

Now Ashton feels a dip in the mattress as Luke shifts around on the bed. He can tell that Luke has gotten closer because he feels the heat from his body and catches the vague scent of his cologne. Mostly, Luke just smells like teenage boy. Not in a bad way, but in a normal way, maybe? Ashton doesn’t know, he just knows that Luke smells like a mixture of teenage boy, a little bit of sweat caused by the heat of the afternoon sun, as well as whatever shampoo he used in his hair that morning.

Ashton likes it.

“Okay,” Luke says once he’s positioned himself directly in front of Ashton, “so I was thinking, like, maybe you could get a sense of how I look by touching me? Like, by just feeling how my facial structure is and stuff.”

Ah, so that’s what he had in mind.

Ashton can’t help but laugh a little. “Wait, so… you want me to _touch_ you?”

“Yeah,” Luke says. It takes him another moment to catch on to the suggestive undertones of Ashton’s words, and his embarrassment is evident in how he stutters a little. “No, not—I didn’t mean—not in _that_ way, just, like… my face. Just my face.”

“Relax, Luke, I know what you meant,” Ashton giggles. He wishes that he could see Luke’s reaction to that. He wishes that he could see a lot of things.

But, he can’t. He can’t see and wishing that he could see won’t change a thing, no matter how much he believed so when he was a child. Now, he’s much older—just turned eighteen, in fact; and he’s learned to accept himself as he is. That’s much better than false wishes.

“Um, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Luke suddenly speaks up, interrupting Ashton’s thoughts. “It was just a stupid idea, sorry...”

“But I _do_ want to,” Ashton quickly replies. In truth, he hadn’t realized that he wanted to give it a shot until just now, but whatever. It seems like a strange but interesting way of trying to ‘see’ someone, and Luke is the one offering him this chance.

So, why not?

Ashton lifts his arms and carefully reaches out, not wanting to accidentally smack Luke in the face or anything. When his fingertips come to rest against Luke’s skin, he hears the other boy let out a small sigh and senses how he relaxes from the gentle touch.

This was okay. Ashton is actually really curious now, so he lets his hands trail upwards until they reach what feels like a bunch of hair. He doesn’t know if he should or not, but he briefly runs his fingers through Luke’s scalp, anyway. The hair is thick and soft and Luke lets out another sigh, seemingly enjoying this. Ashton grins.

“So your hair really does stick up,” he murmurs, remembering when Michael had teasingly referred to Luke’s hair as a skyscraper. He assumes that those must stick up, as well.

“It’s, uh, it’s called a quiff,” Luke tells him. “Quiffs aren’t punk rock… but neither am I, so hey.”

Ashton giggles a little. “Okay.”

He lets his hands come back down to Luke’s face, just barely grazing over the skin on his forehead. One hand comes to rest on the boy’s cheek while the other hand trails down the bridge of his nose, and Ashton takes note of its pointiness. His own nose feels a little rounder in comparison, and he briefly wonders if that’s good or bad. Oh well, who cares, it’s just a nose.

Next, Ashton slides his fingers down Luke’s cheeks, feeling the peach fuzz on his skin and memorizing every bump and curve along the surface of his face. It’s probably a nice face, whatever nice faces look like. Yeah, Ashton bets that it’s a really nice face. His hands meet in the middle of Luke’s chin and he instantly notices the dip in that spot, because he has a similar one on his own chin. Maybe he gets a little too intrigued by it, because Luke lets out a breathy chuckle.

“Kind of tickles,” he whispers.

So Ashton retracts his hands, but not without briefly letting his fingertips glide down the length of Luke’s slender neck.

That was probably a little weird. He doesn’t know why he did that. He just… did. Luke doesn’t say anything about it, but Ashton is starting to feel awkward so he clears his throat and puts on another smile.

“You, uh… you feel nice,” Ashton says, and he sort of cringes because that’s probably even weirder than randomly dragging his fingers down Luke’s neck.

Luckily, Luke doesn’t seem too fazed. “Thanks, I guess? Um… so what do you think? Were you able to picture me at all?”

Ashton slowly shakes his head. “No… but I knew I wouldn’t, anyway, so it’s okay. Thanks for letting me do that, though.”

Luke is quiet again and Ashton wonders what he’s thinking. He hasn’t known Luke nearly as long as he’s known Michael and Calum, so he’s yet to figure out the things that went on in the other boy’s mind. He doesn’t know why Luke intrigues him so much, but he does.

It was only a few months ago that Luke joined their class as the new kid. He’s a little younger than Ashton, but everyone is basically younger than Ashton anyway, since Ashton started school pretty late, due to his disability. It’s fine, though, because he would have never met Michael and Calum if he had started school when he was supposed to. He would’ve never met Luke, either.

He’s glad that Luke moved to their school and he’s glad that he convinced Michael to let Luke sit with them during lunch period, one day. Michael hadn’t seemed to like Luke at first, for whatever reason, and even Calum wasn’t too eager about the idea of letting their little trio become a foursome. Ashton thought that they were being silly, but he understood why they would be suspicious; in the past, people had made fun of Ashton for being blind, and although it doesn’t really happen nowadays, his friends are still really protective over him. So yeah, it was sweet of them, but kind of unnecessary, too.

Now, the four of them hang out all the time and Luke is not as shy as he used to be. He mostly hangs out with Ashton, though, since Michael and Calum are together and they usually go off to do who-knows-what after school hours. Ashton doesn’t need or want to know, but he kind of gets it. They’re young and in love, so of course they’d want to be alone sometimes.

Sometimes Ashton wonders what it’s like to be in love, and he wonders what it’s like to be loved back, too.

Now isn’t really the time to think about that, though.

“So, uh… Calum tells me that you’re blonde and blue-eyed,” Ashton says, eager to eliminate the silence. “Obviously I don’t know what that means, but I hear that people like that kind of thing.”

He feels Luke moving around on the bed again, and then their shoulders are touching when the other boy sits next to him with his back against the wall now, too.

“To be honest, I think that those traits are way overhyped,” Luke says. After a pause, he adds, “I mean, they look really good on some people… but, I’m nothing special. I’m like, average, I think. Maybe even below average.”

Ashton frowns. He doesn’t really understand what it means to be above or below average when it comes to looks, but he doesn’t like the tone of Luke’s voice when he had uttered that statement.

“What makes you think that?” he asks curiously.

Ashton feels the rise of Luke’s broad shoulders against his as the other boy shrugs. He seems to be thinking again, because it takes a few seconds before he actually says anything.

“Well, I don’t think that I’m what people would consider to be, like, attractive or whatever… I mean, I don’t think I’m ugly, either, but there’s definitely nothing to get excited over. I’m somewhere around average. Average and boring.”

Again, Ashton finds it hard to understand, but he doesn’t get why Luke would think such a thing. As far as he knows, Luke isn’t _average_. He’s nice and witty and caring and really smart, too. Ashton has recently begun teaching him to read braille, since he was so eager and wouldn’t stop asking, but he’s already learned so much in the past two weeks alone. He’s also silly and immature just like the rest of them, and he laughs at most of Ashton’s stupid jokes so that’s a bonus.

Best of all, Luke treats him like a person. He knows that Ashton is blind, yeah, but he never treats Ashton like he _is_ his blindness. Luke treats him like a human being and not a fragile flower that’ll blow away in the wind if he isn’t careful enough, and it’s rare that Ashton meets people like that. Lastly, they have similar tastes in music and music is basically Ashton’s life, so being able to talk about songs and exchange playlists with someone fun and kind like Luke, is a privilege.

“You know,” Ashton begins, but his thoughts are all scrambled so he hopes that he makes sense. “I never understood the concept of beauty. I never understood what it meant when people said things like, ‘oh, that person’s really cute’ or ‘no, they’re ugly’. I never understood any of that stuff, so I can’t really relate to what you’re saying. But… isn’t it kind of weird? Maybe even a little funny?”

“How so?” Luke asks quietly.

Ashton hums and pulls his knees to his chest, taking a second to organize his thoughts. “Well, it’s like… what makes one face pretty and the next one ugly? Every face is the same to me, so maybe I’m biased. But, I still wonder who came up with such a thing, y’know? Who decides what’s attractive and what’s not? Surely it can’t be the same around the entire world, but who decides these things?”

Luke is completely silent again, probably lost in his own thoughts, so Ashton goes on and tries to express what he means as clearly as possible.

“You say you’re average, but have you seen anyone who looks exactly like you? Unless that’s not what average means, then I don’t get it. Who decides what’s special and what’s plain? Who decides what’s pretty or ugly? Who decides that being over a certain size is bad? I’d like to meet this decision maker, because I feel like they’re doing it all wrong.”

The mattress shifts a little but Ashton still feels Luke’s warmth next to him, still feels their shoulders touching, so he knows that Luke is still listening. He probably feels a little uncomfortable, but Ashton thinks that maybe he needs to hear these things. Maybe he’ll gain a new perspective, or maybe he’ll help Ashton understand these things that he cannot comprehend.

“So, yeah… I’ll never understand what it means to be a ‘ten’ or a ‘six’ or why people use numbers to describe other people. I’ll never understand why people choose faces over personalities, or why even the type of hair that you have is such a big deal… and what the fuck is a mullet, anyway?”

The random question that gets thrown in there makes Luke laugh, but Ashton is genuinely curious. He doesn’t think that he’s met anyone with that type of hairstyle before, but he really wants to feel it between his fingers, for some reason. He knows that he himself has a head full of messy curls, but he likes it like that. Ashton likes when his friends play with his hair and it felt _really_ good when Luke had done it that first time, but he doesn’t really care how it looks because he’ll never see it, anyway.

“Basically, I guess what I’m trying to say is that… if all of those decisions are based on someone’s preferences, then can’t you make your own decisions, too?”

 This time it isn’t a rhetorical question, and Luke catches on quickly enough.

“What do you mean…?” he asks.

Ashton scratches the back of his head, attempting to find a way to reword what had been said. “Like… you’ve decided that you’re average, because you don’t think that people prefer your appearance. Well, if you can decide that, then I can decide that you’re beautiful.”

Once again it’s dead silent, except for the soft music still playing from the mini speakers on Ashton’s desk. He can’t even hear Luke breathing anymore, and he starts to inwardly panic because he hadn’t thought that saying such a thing would be _that_ bad. In fact, he hadn’t given it much thought at all, just uttered it as fact because, well, it _is_ a fact.

“You don’t even know what I look like…” Luke murmurs all of a sudden, though it’s barely audible.

Ashton merely shrugs. “You’re right, I don’t know what you look like. But, I do know that you’re really fun to be around and you don’t mind when I listen to the same Green Day song on repeat for the thirty-seventh time in a row. That’s pretty special, I think.”

“Well, Green Day is special,” Luke says simply.

Ashton hums in agreement, and with a smile, he adds, “Just like you.”

That was pretty corny and Ashton definitely expects some sort of witty comeback, but he doesn’t get one. Luke is quiet again and, just as always, Ashton wonders what he’s thinking. He also starts to wonder if Luke ever wonders what’s _he’s_ thinking, too. Neither of them can read minds and Ashton doesn’t think that he’d want that super power, but it would be nice to get a full understanding of the complex boy sitting by his side. But, who knows, maybe the suspense that comes with trying to figure Luke out is worth the confusion.

“Luke…?” Ashton turns his head to face his friend, because the silence has stretched on much longer than usual, by now.

Instead of an answer, what he gets in return is the brush of soft lips against his own. It only lasts for a second, maybe even less than that, but Ashton’s heart leaps in his chest from that surprise contact.

Luke had kissed him.

Suddenly the mattress dips again as Luke moves across the bed and stands up, the sound of his nervous breathing audible even over the music and from Ashton’s frozen position on the bed.

“I-I better get going,” Luke stutters out, and his voice sounds a little higher than usual. “’S almost dinnertime and, yeah… s-see you tomorrow? Um. Yeah.”

“Okay,” is all Ashton manages to say, tone barely above a whisper. He’s still trying to get his mind to start working again so that he can figure out _why_ the hell Luke just kissed him, as well as why he liked it and hoped that it would happen again very, very soon. The entire idea of kissing Luke sounds lovely, in fact.

“Bye, Ashton.”

And then Luke is gone as the bedroom door opens and shuts again, his scent still lingering in the room for a few seconds before it’s gone, too.

The current playlist comes to an end and Ashton is left in silence, except not really, because his heart continues to beat loudly in his ears. It’s automatic when he reaches up with a hand and touches his lips with his fingertips, almost still able to feel the sensation of Luke’s lips against his. Just recalling the brief moment sends a shiver down Ashton’s spine and he can’t help but smile.

He may not understand the concept of beauty, but he thinks that what might be blossoming between he and Luke is beautiful in its own way. Hopefully, Luke sees a view that’s just as beautiful.

Hopefully.


End file.
